This invention relates to an automatic coffee maker capable of providing coffee from raw coffee beans through a process of roasting, grinding, and brewing.
The present inventor has previously proposed coffee makers capable of providing coffee completely automatically from raw coffee beans, as described in Japanese Patent early publication Hei. 2-237,519 dated Sep. 20, 1990, early publication Hei. 3-251,212 dated Nov. 8, 1991, and early publication Hei. 4-40916 dated Feb. 12, 1992. With these coffee makers, the raw coffee beans were roasted, cooled, ground, and then the coffee was brewed in a serial type process or procedure, and the next operation could not begin until this serial procedure had been completed. In contrast, with the fully automatic coffee maker proposed in Japanese Patent early Application Hei. 4-224719 dated Aug. 14, 1992, by providing a temporary holding tank for cooling and temporarily holding the roasted coffee beans, it became possible to perform the subprocess consisting of roasting through cooling and holding simultaneously and in parallel with the subprocess consisting of grinding through brewing.
However, even with the coffee maker in Japanese Patent early publication Hei. 4,224719 referred to above, the selection between either the subprocess comprised of roasting through cooling and holding or the subprocess comprised of grinding through brewing was left to the judgment of the user, with the coffee maker itself not having the capabability of automatically making the selection. In addition, it was not indicated to the user whether the procedure performed by the start of operation was the subprocess beginning from roasting or the subprocess beginning from grinding. Thus, operation was not very convenient. Moreover, in such cases as when the brewing means had not been secured in position or the water for the hot water supply had not been prepared, the judgment to stop operation already in progress was not made with sufficient accuracy and reliability.
Thus, a primary objective of this invention is to avoid the problems of the prior art described above by providing a coffee maker which is capable of performing the appropriate automatic operation by sensing whether or not there are coffee beans contained in the apparatus, which is also capable of informing the user of the type of automatic operation that is possible to perform at the present time, and which, in the event that the user has not completed all of the necessary preparations for operation, is also capable of preventing the occurrence of useless operation and dangerous operating conditions by automatically stopping operation at the point just before the step for which the preparations have not been completed.